Black activist punched at Donald Trump rally in Birmingham

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. The Black Lives Matter protester attacked during Donald’s Trump’s Birmingham rally said he was punched, kicked and called “n****r” while a group of eight or nine people were on top of him.A protester pulled off a sweatshirt during a Donald Trump rally Saturday in Birmingham, Alabama — revealing a “Black Lives Matter” shirt underneath, Fox News reported — and began shouting the phrase as Trump spoke.In a video of the incident, several people can be seen tackling the man and at least one man punches him and a woman kicks him while he is on the ground, CNN reported. Mercutio Southall Jr., a well-known activist who said he has been tased at least 30 times and just recently marched heavily –armed through a Birmingham neighborhood to teach people about gun rights, said he is sore after today’s pummeling but doesn’t think he was seriously injured.

Southall said he attended today’s rally because of Trump’s disparaging remarks about minorities – blacks, Latinos and most recently Muslims. “Birmingham is 75 percent black, so why did he choose to come here,” Southall said. “He could have gone to Mountain Brook or Hoover, I know they have the venues that can handle his rhetoric.” Southall said the fracas began when one of his fellow activists was recording their presence at the rally, which they always do. He was throwing his hands around almost punching.” Trump has faced increasing backlash for his incendiary comments about immigrants, Syrian refugees and protesters on college campuses seeking civil rights action. He said, “I’m recording this live from the BJCC because we want Donald Trump to know he’s not welcome here,” and that’s when someone knocked the phone out of the other man’s hand. In his rambling speech Saturday, Trump addressed the idea of creating a database to track Muslims in the U.S., a suggestion that has garnered intense criticism. “So here’s the story just to set it clear: I want surveillance of these people.

He was kicked in the stomach, and the chest, both men and women. “I got enough people off of me that I was able to get up a little bit,” he said. “Somebody got behind me and started trying to choke me out.” Asked what he was thinking when he was being pummeled from above, Southall said what he always says: “I’m not dying today,” he said. “I’ve got (expletive) to do. Secret Service agents and Birmingham police escorted Southall from the room. “They were trying to protect them from me and I was like, ‘where were you when they were attacking me and choking me?” he said.

We’ve had it before and we’ll have it again.” Trump even referenced that incident during his speech Saturday, saying that a “seriously obese” man was escorted out of an event earlier in the week. “The other night I had one guy who was seriously obese,” Trump said. “He complained when I mentioned food stamps, and the guy went crazy and said that wasn’t politically correct. Can’t let that stuff happen.” The racially charged altercation happened in Birmingham, famous in the 1960s as a center of the civil rights’ struggle, and led some to note that Trump’s supporters attending the rally were nearly all white in a city with a majority of black people. Former Florida governor Jeb Bush said some of Trump’s anti-Islam comments are “manipulating people’s angst and their fears.” Sanders, in an address at Georgetown University last week, said of Trump: “People should not be using the political process to inject racism into the debate.” Before the fight broke out, Trump had already warned the audience that Islamic State fighters might recruit their children online and called for an impenetrable wall along the southern border, prompting the crowd to chant: Build a wall! And I don’t want them coming in.” Trump also said he watched as “thousands and thousands of people” cheered the fall of the World Trade Center on 9/11, which gave the impression that he was talking about Muslims being happy that so many Americans died.

But starting on Wednesday, Trump’s campaign manager began to forcefully block reporters from leaving a designated media area during Trump’s speeches, restrictions that reporters have challenged. But soon after, Trump’s staff spotted him and forced him back into the media area they call “the pen.” A Washington Post reporter in the crowd also witnessed part of the altercation.

They also cast these protesters as violent extremists and pointed to media reports that one of the hecklers arrested at a Trump rally in Massachusetts a few days earlier had once been convicted of trying to bomb a Marine recruiting center. On stage, Trump had been bragging about his high poll numbers, noting that rival Ben Carson is “dropping like a rock” in early polls and announcing that he’s “winning big” in Alabama.